The strap line on this blog is a quotation from Nick Cave who says that music is the only art form that can change your brain chemistry in 3 minutes.  It is true.  A programme on BBC Radio 4 was talking about the science behind music and made the very same point.  Music affects the brain and releases dopamine.  The mystery is why and how. 

Why some music will release dopamine for one person and not another and what is the mechanism behind this. 

Researchers scanned the brains of subjects while they listened to new songs and asked how much they would spend on buying the tracks. They found that the most popular songs – those which people were prepared to pay more for – were also the ones that elicited the strongest response in the nucleus accumbens, a structure in the centre of the brain that is involved in reward processing.

“This area is important because it’s involved in forming expectations and these are expectations that could be rewarding,” said Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. “What makes music so emotionally powerful is the creation of expectation. Activity in the nucleus accumbens normally would indicate that expectations are being met or surpassed.”

This still does not explain why some music elicits such a harsh response that I can hardly bear to listen to it.  I have a particular problem with brass band music.  It is not just that I do not find it entertaining, my reaction is more basic.  It is akin to a physical pain.  It hurts me to listen to a brass band!